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Selene
Selene is a Vampire Death Dealer who appears in Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. She is portrayed by actress Kate Beckinsale and by Lily Sheen as a child. Background Selene was born to a Hungarian family sometime in the year 1383. Her father was a well-known architect who helped design a fortress for a Vampire general named Viktor. The fortress was, in reality, a dungeon intended for the imprisonment of the Werewolf William Corvinus, who was condemned for his bloody and destructive behaviour. After Lycans supposedly killed her family, Selene was the only surviving human who had walked through the corridors of the fortress. She did not know, however, that her family was slain by Viktor himself, and not by the Lycans. She believed Viktor saved her. New Life She became a Death Dealer, fighting the war against the Lycans for revenge. Kraven, the Coven’s regent, was obsessed with her, though she did not return the feelings. She once exiled the Official Historian, Andreas Tanis, on Viktor’s orders, although the two seemed to have a grudging respect for each other. Underworld After a confrontation with the Lycan hit man, Raze, Selene discovers what is supposedly a Lycan lair. Not knowing that Kraven was in league with the Lycan leader, Lucian, to take over the Vampire realm from the Elders, she was angry when he dismissed her claims. She tracked down the human she believed the Lycans had an interest in: Michael Corvin. Against the sacred rules of the covenant, she and the lycanthropy disease infected Michael fell in love. She awakened Viktor from his slumber, believing that only he had the power to deal with the conspiracy between Kraven and Lucian. She then led a mass assault on the Lycans’ underground bunker. After Michael is shot by a jealous Kraven, Selene is forced to infect Michael with her Vampire virus strain, thus making him the first Lycan-Vampire Hybrid. She also learned the truth about her family’s murder from Kraven, and she struck down Viktor while the Elder was busy fighting Michael, most likely out of vengeance and to save Michael. She then retrieved Sonja’s pendant, carrying on the legacy. Underworld: Evolution After Viktor’s death, Selene and Michael go on the run from both Lycans and Vampires. Selene is confronted by Marcus, the last surviving Vampire Elder. As Marcus attacks her for Sonja’s pendant, Michael intervenes and fights Marcus to protect Selene. After narrowly escaping Marcus and the coming sunlight, Selene and Michael take refuge in a warehouse. In the warehouse Michael attempts to tend to Selene's burn wounds, only to discover they have already healed. While hiding in the warehouse, the two become lovers. To find out why Marcus was after the pendant, she seeks out Andreas Tanis. Tanis tells her the truth about her family’s slaughter and reveals to her that Marcus, not Viktor, is the original Vampire. He then sets up a meeting for her and Michael with Alexander Corvinus (who he calls Lorenz Macro, his alias), Marcus’ father and the first true immortal. Selene becomes angry with Alexander (after realizing who he was due to his ring) for not removing the threats his sons posed long ago. Alexander then retorts by asking her if she would murder her own son. An interruption by Marcus in which Michael is seemingly killed results is Selene’s memories of the fortress to be taken by Marcus through her blood. Alexander tells Selene that the only way to defeat Marcus and William would be to drink his blood, adding that she would become the “Future”. Selene gains greater strength and new powers from Alexander’s blood. All through this exchange, she is grief-stricken over the loss of Michael. Selene and a squad of Alexander’s ‘Cleaners’ invade William’s dungeon, trying to stop the threat. They arrive too late, however, and Selene is forced to fight Marcus. Marcus is shocked to smell his father’s blood flowing through Selene’s veins. After locking Marcus in William’s dungeon, Selene discovers that William has infected all the Cleaners, who then become Lycans themselves. On the verge of being overwhelmed, she is saved by Michael, who has regenerated due to his Hybrid powers. Selene fights Marcus once more, and the Elder drives his wing talon through her chest. Empowered by Alexander’s blood, Selene tears away the talon and drives it into Marcus’ skull before throwing him into the helicopter blades, thus killing him. After Marcus and William are killed, Selene discovers that she is able to stand in the sunlight due to the pure Corvinus Strain from Alexander Corvinus. It phenomenally enhances her strength and healing to a level equivalent to that of a Vampire-dominate Hybrid. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans At the end of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Selene can be seen on a building, thinking back to the time when Kraven told her the truth about Viktor, her family, and Sonja. She then remembers herself saying 'Lies' in response. Blood Enemy In the non-canon novel ''Blood Enemy'', Selene is responsible for the death of renegade Lycan Leyba, tracking her down after Leyba's forces attack a Lycan weapons deal and are responsible for the deaths of both the Lycans and another member of Selene's team. During the confrontation with Leyba, Leyba briefly reflects that Selene's eyes are like 'hers' (Sonja's), but Selene never learns the meaning of this comment before she kills Leyba. Leyba's goals remain a mystery to Selene. Relationships After the slaughter of her human family, Selene looks to Viktor as a replacement parent, idealizing him and looking to him when she believes the coven is in trouble. Viktor claims at one point to love Selene "like a daughter," calling her "my child." Kraven claims that Viktor turned Selene into a Vampire to replace Sonja, his own executed daughter (although this turns out to only partially be true). Selene seems to have no other close relationships within the coven, being friendly but not overly-social with the other Death Dealers. She seems to have a bit of contempt for the civilian members of the coven, and in return, they do not seem to like her either. Kraven's desire for her seems to be as much out of power (she is, in a sense, a princess of the coven) as out of lust, but they spend much of the time fighting, and Selene only has disdain for him. There seems to be some social expectations of Selene within the coven because of her status as Viktor's favorite; for instance, she is expected to attend the party welcoming Amelia. Her relationship with Michael is rather more complicated. Her feelings toward him seem to evolve very quickly. In her first sighting of him during a subway shoot-out with the lycans, she is impressed at his bravery in diving out to help a woman who has been injured in the crossfire, and later feels gratitude for him for saving her life after she passed out while driving and the car crashed into the river. She is also sympathetic when he tells her about his wife's death. When he is changing into a Lycan, she is hesitant to kill him, not only because of her attraction to him but because of how he has helped her and others. When he is dying of silver nitrate poisoning, she only bites him in order to save his life by making him a Hybrid. He later thanks her, much to both their embarrassment. It is presumed that they become lovers very quickly because neither of them thought they would survive Marcus hunting them, but despite her apparent detachment, Selene is highly distraught when she comes to believe Michael is dead, and becomes even more deadly and vengeful as a result. When she discovers that Michael is alive and that she can withstand sunlight without burning due to Corvinus' blood, she narrates that she looks to the future "with new hope." Powers & Abilities Selene appears to be very serious and bitter as she rarely smiles. She is extremely proficient with many kinds of weapons, both medieval and modern, including the Walther P99 and a variety of automatic machine pistols. Selene frequently demonstrates superhuman physical abilities. In both movies she is seen jumping from a ledge at least 100 feet (approx. 30 meters) and landing without injury. She also uses super human strength to pin Michael Corvin against a wall several feet off the ground, performs spectacular leaps, and strikes her enemies with tremendous force. She is able to kill younger Vampires with just a few blows. She can take a shotgun blast to the abdomen without flinching, and manhandles four police officers as if they were rag dolls. After fortifying herself with some blood from Alexander Corvinus, she is able to lift people with one arm and go toe to toe with Marcus Corvinus in his Hybrid form. She has been slammed against stone walls, breaking stones, with seemingly no ill effects to herself. Like other Vampires, her eyes become ice-blue when she is angered, frightened, or aroused. At the end of Underworld: Evolution, her eyes are shown to temporarily turn all white but for the pupils, and she is now able to walk in the sunlight, signaling she has become something different than she was before. Trivia *The role of Selene was written for actress Kate Beckinsale right from the beginning. *The child version of Selene is played by Lily Sheen, the daughter of Kate Beckinsale, Selene's adult actress. Lily's natural father is Michael Sheen, the actor who plays Lucian, although he and Kate had an amicable split before the beginning of shooting the first Underworld film. Kate later married the director of the first two films, Len Wiseman. *Promotional materials for the first movie put Selene's age at 121 years, though that was later changed to 600 years for the sequel. *A pendant that had previously belonged to a Vampire princess named Sonja was used as a toy by Selene when she was a child, though it was given to Sonja almost two hundred years before Selene's birth. This may be a goof, or it may suggest that Viktor lent the pendant to Selene's father to use as a key before returning it to his daughter. Gallery File:seleneuwe.jpg|Selene in Underworld: Evolution File:seleneuwe2.jpg|Selene in her father's dungeon File:seleneuw3.jpg|Selene in the opening shot of Underworld idontknow.JPG|Young Selene (Lily Sheen) with her father underworld.jpg|Selene with Michael (Scott Speedman) See Also Category:Character Category:Vampire Category:Death Dealer Category:Hybrid